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Saturday, February 20, 2010

The ugly face of conservatism

The bigots on the Right (and yes, there are bigots on the Left as well) are not a pretty sight. Behold one Ryan Sorba from the misnamed Young Americans for (sic.) Freedom. Sorba does not want social freedom but state control. He is also an antigay political activist who goes around given lectures on the evil nature of gays and has written an antigay polemic as well that seems to be published only in pdf format. Sorba is clearly obsessed with the issue and seems intent to make gay baiting his full time occupation. The boy has issues.

The American Conservative Union puts on a conference that tends to be attended by a younger crowd. And while a lot of these students see themselves as conservatives (they'll learn) they don't hold the hateful agenda of people like Sorba. The conference, CPAC apparently allowed a Republican group for gays (similar to a Nazi group for Jews) to have a table in the display hall. And Mr. Sorba got his panties in a knot over the idea. So he went to the podium and denounced the conference for allowing gays to attend.

He ranted about "natural law" confusing it with theology, which is supernatural law and has no relationship to natural law theory. What is interesting, and this should worry Maggie Gallagher and her Mormon funders, is that the most younger audience started booing him. No doubt some of this was due to his being such a flaming asshole in public, but a lot of it appears to be because a lot of conservative youth don't share his prejudices and were appalled by him. Watch the video and see how vigorous a send-off Sorba received. Keep reminding yourself that these are the young conservatives.

If the anti-gay bigots have lost their own young activists they have lost the war. Maggie ought to go back to her church, Sorba back to his closet, and contemplate what this sort of response means for the future of social conservatism. For what it's worth, based on years of observing the crazy Right, I would say that if there exists a betting pool on which conservative is most likely to be caught in a sex scandal, I know where I'd put my bet.